another skater at my rink pointed out to me that my blades were flattening down and recommended me to think of getting new blades. how can you tell the blade is flattening? if anyone has a picture to post of a blade that is not flattened yet I would like to compare it to my blades. thanks!

You can just do a Google Image search under the name of your blade and you'll be able to see a photo of a brand new blade that's the same model as yours.
Generally, the rocker of the blade (the round part right behind the bottom toepick) gets gradually flatter and flatter as you keep sharpening it.
Are you having a hard time centering your spins or do you find yourself catching your bottom pick on your spins? Do you scrape on your back crossovers even when you are trying really hard not to? These are some signs that your blade has gone too flat on the rocker and it's time for new blades.

If you are able to go to a skate fitter, they will be able to tell you. My own blades had become flattened and I took them along to our skate guy who used a guide which he placed against the lower edges of my blade. You could see daylight between my blade and the guide so I ended up with new skates. Not sure how easy it is to see without such a tool, but my guess is that if you've had them a few years and have had them regularly sharpened they may need replacing.

Nicki

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I have always had a hard time centering my spins as well as at times catching my bottom pick. with crossovers, if i try really hard it won't be scratchy. i have a feeling with my awful technique in spinning (gotta keep practicing!) along with some flattening of my blade which i may have, are both contributing to all this. my blades are just about 2 years old, i dont even know the name of them, when i bought my boot i just had them stick on the most inexpensive blade for a beginner skater, all it says on it is john wilson deluxe, i had them sharpened prob like 6 times, most recently 2 months ago. i now skate about 7 hours/week. i guess ill take a trip out to my skate sharpener and ask him about the flattening.

If you haven't sharpened your blades too much, then it'd be just a matter of taking the blades down to a real pro sharpening service and get reprofiling done. No problem at all. Sharpened 6 times is nothing. Your blades will be just fine after reprofiling.

If your rocker has been ruined after only 6 sharpenings, then somebody owes you a new pair of blades.

Then again, if you have the cheapest blades, you might want to upgrade anyway.